Amid pessimistic predictions of a poor retail showing over Christmas, TNS Worldpanel today (12 January) announced that the UK’s grocers enjoyed brisk trade over the two-week Christmas period with the market increasing by 11% during the two weeks to 31 December.
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The top four supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – are all expected to report double digit growth.
Edward Garner, TNS research eirector, said: “Our supermarket share figures, released yesterday for the last quarter of 2006 showed strong growth from the grocers of 5%. However, when we look specifically at the two weeks of Christmas this growth rises to a significant 11%. Trading updates from Sainsbury’s and Morrisons this week reflect the strong performance of Britain’s grocers and TNS Worldpanel data shows that Tesco and Asda both saw growth ahead of the market over the two-week festive period.
“This suggests whilst consumers may have been hesitant to spend large sums of money on the high street, they were compelled to significantly raise their supermarket spending over the two weeks.”
